Unchained
by geanna
Summary: It would be like turning back the clocks, smudging greasepaint onto her skin again and painting her lips into that harlequin smile to play dress-up for her jester king.  JHQ
1. Chapter 1

It had been an unbearably long year.

A year filled with the required doses twice daily, with therapy sessions four times a week and with irritating group exercise scheduled every other day (and yes, those _were_ just as dreadful as one would assume). The attendants were typically patient, the walls a pasty, hospital white, and the air too fresh for her slick, blackened city lungs to comfortably adjust to. All these things and more however, she hadn't complained once. In fact, with that big, coquettish grin of hers, she'd welcomed the unfamiliar when she was rather politely informed upon being detained that her stay at Arkham would be short-lived.

See fortunately for her, she had friends on the inside. Well, one friend that is who, amusingly enough, was never even so much a friend to begin with but more of an amicable coworker instead. The doctor's name was Joan Leland and she was head of the psychiatric department at Arkham Asylum. And for whatever reason, the rare ethics the good doctor encompassed had led her to pull some strings on her patient's behalf and have her wound up at a place dubbed Gotham Rehabilitation Facility.

She'd been skeptical at first as it was a flat, undersized compound that was geared more towards heroin addicts and alcoholics than the mentally unhinged (_though really, what's the difference? she'd remark in that oh-so-sickly-sweet lilt of hers she had yet to disguise again)._ Leland had urged her on however, insisting that the facility was a much healthier environment for her than that of the asylum. There were too many loopholes, too many blunders in Gotham's supreme justice system that led the city to consent to having her placed there despite her given criminal record. Of course, she had an inkling her blessed circumstances had more to do with the fact that if _he_ were ever to be arrested again, there was only one place they'd put him. Figuring that their first fateful encounter at the asylum had been enough to drive the once esteemed doctor mad and that it would only hinder any progress she was to make, without making much of a fuss she welcomed her new home with optimism.

Unfortunately for her, the other patients weren't as hospitable.

Most were uneasy with her arrival. They avoided sitting anywhere near her in the recreation rooms or for lunch in the dining hall, retreated to the nearest room whenever she passed through the corridors, and some even refused to participate at all in group activities if ever she was involved. Never much for useless interaction, she ignored that sinking feeling in her chest and refrained from initiating any sort of contact with the other residents. She supposed being around the former lover of a sadistic, sociopathic clown didn't always tend to bring out the best in people. That's what she noticed with the one, odd patient who'd spit at her feet or garble through tears about the contemptible acts she's committed or assisted in. She tended to block those people out the most.

Shifting her weight from one heel to the other in her seat, she ran her fingers through untangled, bleached hair.

_Alice and Wonderland has always been my favorite book._

Were the words scrawled onto the crisp, lined notebook paper lain across her lap that was meant to become 'a sort of memoir to reveal improvement (_says the psychologist with the hopeful features as he passes her the Dixie cup of colorful pills_)'. The letters weren't girlishly loopy or playful, and the 'I's' weren't dotted with silly little hearts. No, the words were scribbled and cluttered instead, written with rigidness that her outmoded psychologists' psyche quietly assessed from a forgotten, dusty corner of her mind as a reserved nature brought on by posttraumatic stress.

Harley reached across the table and fumbled with her lighter as her third cigarette that morning was poised between colorless, chapped lips.

The first time she ever lit a cigarette was when she was thirteen years old. She remembered that day specifically because of how sunny it had been and how the heat got the crickets buzzing and made the horizon look a little too fuzzy when she squinted back at it. One of her friends had pilfered the carton off of an older sibling, shoved a stick into her mouth and lit it when they stood in the patch of shade behind their middle school. Through a hoarse coughing fit, she had spit it right back out and her friend had the gall to laugh at her for it. She'd hated that searing, papery taste left on her tongue.

Now, she easily burns through two to three packs a week. Really, it's just too funny how things work out that way.

Actually, that book had been similar in that sense. The first time she'd leafed through, she hadn't cared much for it. It was much too confusing to read by herself and what with her mother typically passed out on the French-style settee by noon (compliments of Dom Perignon) and her father's waning existence from her life, she was usually left alone to occupy herself. She was seven at the time and like any kid at that age, although the words were gibberish, the strange illustrations that went with it managed to catch her bright, blue eye.

When she'd gotten a little older, she happened upon the book carelessly wedged between her bed and nightstand and decided to read through a second time. Things seemed to make even less sense to her in this sitting than they had the first but for whatever reason, she took a liking to it.

Her favorite character, of course, had been that strange, little Alice. Looking back she found she'd always liked the idea that the girl's simple, childlike appearance could be countered by the complexity of her mind. How she only _seemed_ like the sane one in a world beckoning mayhem to its fold. She was no ordinary child that much was for certain, as the idea of creating one's own entire Wonderland seemed rather inane. The characters were puzzling, the speech hard to grasp, and still, it was all so intoxicating.

All of it was; the words, the contrasts, the _madness_.

She tapped the pen tip lightly against the paper, a grayish swirl of smoke lingering about her face in the shaft of sunlight that washed over the room.

And _oh, that Cheshire cat_, she used to say to her book as she sipped her imaginary tea, _what a funny, little thing._

In that strange world of tardy, white rabbits and never ending riddles, lay the purring voice of reason that, for all intents and purposes, made as little sense to her as the world itself. He represented the philosophical enigma that tempted young Alice so much to even question her _own_ existence.

_We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad._

The words still resounded in the omitted hollows of her mind as she brought the cigarette back up to her mouth. It was as if his smile was right there before her eyes again. A stained, putrid grin curled up past the corners of his mouth by scarred flesh. That sinister figure forever destined to reappear throughout her life like an unwanted visitor she could never find the nerve to banish.

_How do you know I'm mad? said Alice._

The noxious smoke that lay thick in her lungs clenched up her throat, and suddenly she forgot how to breathe. It was all too real. He was much too close. She could almost detect the lingering stench of gasoline that stuck to his skin like cologne. It was such a shame too. She'd always loved the smell of gasoline.

His reflection was a blur in the window pane, inching into a closer view from behind her to reclaim his property (_it had been around therapy sessions sixteen through eighteen that she really started to admit that's all she was to him_). Her eyes began to tear as the smoke coiled menacingly inside of her. Just a few more _tap, taps_ of his footfall and she'd be his again, all this work undone, jailed within the confines he'd set for her life. This load she'd escaped and dreaded ever to return. She'd tried so hard.

_You must be…_

And yet...

_Or you wouldn't have come here._

Maybe this was something she could never outrun.

'Harley?'

Jerking her head in the direction of her name, Harley sat, trembling.

The room was bright and quiet save for the ticking clock on the wall and the apprehensive tone of Dr. Leland's voice. The doctor stood but a few feet from her and Harley wondered why she hadn't noticed her earlier. She turned her attention back to the window pane, the Cheshire grin stretched across the glass moments before having vanished, the chill at her back having left only a damp sweat in its wake.

'Harley, are you alright?' Leland hurried to her side where she sat perched on the armrest of the claret colored sofa in the atrium. Letting out the smoke which had been loitering about inside her, Harley flicked the cigarette into the ashtray and waved a hand at her.

'I'm fine, I'm fine,' she placated the woman who less than gently grasped her wrist and pushed the medical bracelet up her arm to check her pulse. Joan was a very thin woman with cold, skeletal fingers and a gaunt shaped face much different from the soft, rounded one of her patient. Harley had always found her a pretty woman though thought it was unfortunate she could never find the time or effort to dress up every now and again. Maybe then she wouldn't still be living all by herself in that horrid, little one bedroom apartment of hers that smelled a little too much like cleaning supplies. That is if she even was still living there. So much had changed since she'd been her respected colleague and not her patient.

'It's just one of those days, I guess,' Harley proceeded to add as she tore her gaze from the woman and out the window. The sun was setting just off in the distance, slipping beneath the grayish stretch of water and painting the sky colored hues of orange and crimson. Tiny lights flickered on the horizon and she aimlessly wondered whether anyone was staring back at her from their side of the lake. Somewhere down the hall, the telephone rang at the receptionist's desk.

Joan turned her sharp gaze on her patient.

'_One of those days_,' the doctor repeated warily. Harley turned back to her, reeling at the sudden turn the conversation had taken.

'I'm fine, really,' she swiftly amended, awkwardly wrenching her arm free from the woman's prying eyes, 'I've just been feeling a bit tired lately.'

'Harley, this is a serious matter,' Dr. Leland began to say to her as she tugged down the sleeves of the unexciting, off-white sweater she wore, 'If you're starting to relapse then -,'

'Of course not!' she scrambled from her seat to stand at full height with her doctor (though truth be told, Harley was quite petite, her doctor standing nearly a head taller than her in heels). 'Really, I'm fine. I promise.'

The woman with the stern face and slanted rimmed glasses eyed her expectantly.

'Joan, you of all people know I've never stopped wanting your help since that day at Arkham's gates a year ago. If there was something really going on, you trust I'd let you know right away, right?'

'Yes, but Harley we've been over this many of times before. Simply ignoring your problems will never fully eradicate them,' she argued and for seemed to be for the fifty-seventh time in the past twelve months, Harley's chagrin with her former colleague-turned-doctor's imbalanced respect swelled.

'I'm not ignoring anything, I swear. I really do feel so much like my old self again,' she smiled reassuringly, praying she would drop the matter for at least the time being. She watched as her eyes glazed over, as if she could just see the memories clouding the woman's judgment. The newspaper headlines, the shaky homemade videos posted up on the news, the blood swirling with greasepaint and rainwater as she screamed for—

'Alright, then,' Joan began to say while Harley mentally shook herself free of her reverie before her doctor had time to notice, 'But you must let me know if you start to feel anything…_familiar_, again.'

Harley nodded and sunk back into the couch, feeling more like Alice the imaginative little girl than ever.

Joan had taken it upon herself to visit Harley at the facility a few times a week to check in on her. It was quite a distance from Gotham just to see one patient, but she wouldn't have doubted the fascination such a tale could inspire. Young, lovely upstart psychologist falls madly in love with sadistic sociopathic clown and becomes a patient herself, you couldn't write better stuff than that. She should have thought of it herself.

Clutching the notebook paper in her grasp, Harley lit herself another cigarette and eased back into the cushion.

'So,' Joan began in that characteristically condescending tone of hers, 'I just came from my meeting with the DA about your release forms.'

'And?' Harley muttered from behind the hand cupping the flame of her lighter.

'And with the help of my professional esteem, I convinced them you were fit to be released by the end of this year.'

Harley turned her gaze on the doctor, eyes brightening in the waning sunlight. It was nearly October, the months since her incarceration that had been so enduring seeming a distant memory.

'Now, that's only if by the end of this year you pass your psychoanalysis and I deem whether or not you're still fit to be discharged.'

Harley couldn't help but smile. Couldn't help but allow the warmth to spread across her face as Leland droned on about protocol and maintaining her dosages. She'd been obsessing over leaving the compound as of late. She felt she was over it all now, that she'd passed all her psychiatric evaluations and knew it was time to fly the coop. Soon, she'd be free of this place. Allowed to leave the grounds and return to…

She felt cold just then as the thought donned on her.

'Where…' she began to say, her voice sounding quieter than she'd intended, 'Where will I go?'

Joan sighed. The type of sigh that revealed she'd been waiting for Harley to put two and two together and ask. 'Due to state regulations, you're permitted to return to Gotham but as your doctor I strongly recommend you uproot.'

Return to Gotham? The name itself left a bitter hollowness inside of her. It was his city, as he'd reminded her time and again and frankly, despite everything, she still believed it. Going back meant stepping onto his territory, his domain. It would be like turning back the clocks, smudging greasepaint onto her skin again and painting her lips into that harlequin smile to play dress-up for her jester king. He conquered the city, laid waste to its dwindling moral core. It would take little time for him to find her and the chains she escaped would only bind her to him again. No, she couldn't return to him…no matter how much he stalked her psyche to coax her out.

As Harley stared off, recluse to her thoughts, Leland settled on the armrest of the chair facing the couch, placing a hand atop Harley's braceleted one. 'You don't need to go back, Harleen. I believe you are strong enough to continue forward but I think in doing so, returning to that hellhole will only damage the progress you've made.'

_Hell-hole. _Truer words were never spoken.

Taking a drag on her cigarette, Harley smiled sadly at her doctor.

'I hear Seattle's got some nice apartments by the bay front.'

* * *

><p>AN: So this is the start of something I hope to actually accomplish. A lot of JHQ fics I find seem to tackle the Mad Love story from Harley at Arkham, however, here I'm attempting to work my way backwards in fragments. A sort of rewinding into how a gritty 'Nolanverse' interpretation of Harley might end up in a certain way. I hope you enjoy enough to stick around, thanks.


	2. Chapter 2

'Will you tell me your real name?'

It was a question she would only ever ask him twice during the entirety of their relationship. The first time being when he'd been her patient and she his doctor. The second, when she'd become his accomplice instead. She remembers it had been raining hard outside and the weather had left the room dim and with a slight mildew-like odor. They'd been lying on the stripped mattress lain on the floor by the window. She'd been resting her head on his chest while he stared up at the ceiling and they'd been quietly awake for quite some time (he hardly ever slept, but the rare times he did, he tossed and turned and mumbled distorted things in his sleep that crept into her own dreams and fashioned them into nightmares).

After uttering the words, she imagined the situation could have played out in various ways. With the position she was in, he could have easily pulled her by the hair and struck her across the face for her insolence which was something she braced herself for at first. She also ventured he might growl at her to shut her mouth to which she'd leave the subject alone and try to fall asleep by his side. It appeared, however, he'd been in an enticing mood as he reacted in neither way she'd predicted and instead remained silent and mostly still; the steady rise and fall of his chest accompanied by the sound of the rain beating against the fire escape. Harley's stiff figure carefully relaxed as he kept quiet and as moments passed, she assumed her question would go unanswered.

Just as Harley's eyelids had begun to droop, he'd spoken,

'Names are funny, little things.'

Resting her chin on his chest, she looked up at him and saw he continued to stare up at the leaky ceiling tiles.

'You're branded from birth. You've got no choice in the matter,' he paused, clicking his jaw, 'You're stuck with it whether you like it or not. And within that…_confine,_ you inadvertently find yourself your own author.'

Harley watched his chin move as he spoke, unable to discern the expression on his face but feeling the unease lance through his muscles and render him rigid against her.

'Your own author?' she mimicked an audience's response, waiting quietly for the comic to present the punch line.

'You see, Harley-girl, they give you this character when you pop out of mommy-dearest. They give ya' a clean slate. Just a simple name for you to do with what you please. _Youuuu_ write the story. See, sometimes…sometimes you get the boring writers who stick their character in an ordinary atmosphere with an ordinary routine and keep to their _little, ordinary _lives," his playful theatrical intonation dipped to a menacing growl and Harley felt his hawk-like grip on her shoulder flex. "Then you've got the innovative writers. They're the ones who put a bit of, uh, _spice_ into the storybook code and put their characters in situations where real conflict comes into play. They fool around and make their characters at least slightly memorable, I suppose. Then finally, you've got the literary geniuses and they of course are the ones who _really _see the big picture.'

He ran his greasepaint-stained fingers through her muddled, bleached hair all the while holding her attention in suspense.

'Those guys are the ones who realize a _name_ is just a _nameeeeee_. Who find out a name can be scrapped just as quickly and as easily as it was given. One quick _snap_,' he snapped his fingers by her ear, 'and it can all be wiped away.'

'Like you and the Batman?' she asked, rising to a kneeling position at his side to gaze down at him. His painted white face was illuminated by the street light filtering in through the window. His forehead creased into a disapproving frown as he tisked her.

'No. See, our dear, dark knight doesn't know the rules of the game. He's started something new without tossing out what's old and _that's_ cheating. And I certainly don't like cheaters…especially the self-righteous ones.'

'But you did, then? Toss out the old, I mean.'

The joker got quiet again, taking in a great deal of air then exhaling quite vehemently.

'I didn't like that character. Too many angles I didn't like. '

Harley began tracing the buttons on his patterned, blue shirt and started thinking to herself about her own name.

'I guess I'm like you too then, aren't I?'

He fit his arm snugly behind his head and arched an eyebrow at her.

'With having two names and all. I mean…I used to be Harleen Quinzel. Stuck in a life I never really wanted but just kept going through the motions, I guess,' she smiled at him just then, tilting her head just right to capture the impishness he'd drawn out of her, 'Then you came along and I started over again. Wrote myself a new life and scrapped the old one.'

He blinked at her lazily as she continued outlining the hexagons on his shirt. Then, with what could be taken as an approving grunt, he shifted his head on the mattress and shut his eyes. Harley watched him for quite some time after that, admiring the creases below his eyes and the fine line of his cherry-red, top lip. Eventually, she nestled back into the crook of his arm, resting her head by his as he kept very still beside her.

* * *

><p>When Harley awoke, there was no rain falling against the window pane. There was no smell of mildew or leaky ceiling tiles or the warmth of the Joker at her side. The room was silent, dark and lonely.<p>

Glancing over at the clock, the time read 2:36 in the morning. Harley took a deep breath and closed her eyes again.

During her med school days, Harley had become particularly fascinated with Carl Jung's dream theory. In fact, it had probably been about the only section of the unit she'd genuinely excelled in. She took a liking to the idea that the subconscious was very much in tune with the mind's dormant desires and that through dreamscape one could decipher these inner cravings. She'd read through many books concerning dream interpretations and recalled that dreaming of the past suggested your subconscious was making the persistent effort to relay a message to the person that they've struggled to ignore. This appeared to be no exception.

Swinging her legs over the side of the cot, Harley reached forward and flicked on the bedside lamp.

The months had passed by quickly (though not quite as quickly as she would have hoped) and already the day had arrived for her release. Since that evening in the foyer, Harley had put away the notepad with the scribbled words about Alice along with all discouraging thoughts of her past she wished to remain dormant in a small, cardboard box beneath her bed. She had taken her medication religiously, attended all her rehabilitation sessions and psychiatric evaluations and in turn had proven herself fit for discharge. Joan had been positively elated with the progress she'd made, assuring Harley that she was oh-so proud of the young woman's rehabilitation and that ultimately her psychiatric recovery was all that mattered. Harley had struggled to sustain her smile at this, knowing full well that Leland would greatly benefit from curing one of Gotham's most notorious super criminals. It was such a shame. Nobody gave a real care about anyone anymore.

Harley yawned and rubbed her eye with her fingertips. Of all the times for her mind to plague her with memories the hour could have chosen itself better. Tapping her bare feet against the linoleum floors, she sat and pondered for a moment. Then rising from the bed, Harley snatched the cigarette carton off the nightstand and headed for the door.

The hanging lamps that circled the security booth at the end of the corridor which Harley paced towards faintly lit the hall. Double bulletproof glass doors barred entrance to the opposite wing, a technological advancement that really should have been awarded to Arkham considering their distasteful, grungy layout. The contemporary outlook here almost made one forget they were pretty much imprisoned in a mental institution by a different name such as 'rehabilitation center'.

As Harley neared the booth, she began taking longer strides; ones that she knew would cause her hip to jut slightly and add a bit of bounce to her perky breasts. It was Thursday, and on this particular evening Harley knew that Vincent Press would be behind that window paned counter probably dozing off, as a good security guard should not. However, tonight as she approached the booth and looked behind the desk, Vincent appeared to be doodling various inappropriate things on a scrap piece of paper. Harley smiled as he started and crumpled the paper close to his chest and grinned bashfully back at her.

Vincent was one of the younger, newer, and as Harley profiled when she'd first targeted him, _careless_ of the security guards. He'd arrived at the center only three months prior and she blessed her lucky stars that he'd been such an easily swayed, adorable, testosterone-driven boy. When she first met him, she felt like she was back in medschool. The familiar persona she embraced when she'd wanted something done her way by using the flutter of her eyelashes or the flash of a perfectly shaped thigh to get it. When Vincent had double-took her as she passed by him on his tour of the vicinity, the recognizable itch of having someone at her mercy with something as simple as a pretty face flared inside her. It bored her to tears after a while to never be presented with a challenge, which is why she figured she was so drawn to the Joker in the first place. Someone who controlled_ her _every move for once, there was something about it that made her tingle all over.

It was when she noticed one night upon wandering the hall due to sleeplessness that he was on duty manning the booth at her very wing. Coincidences she didn't believe in. It was all she needed to begin chatting him up that evening to familiarize herself with him as a harmless, pretty blonde who was there to boost that highschool ego that had stuck with him long after graduation day. With a few of the men she'd seduced, she'd had to run the full mile. That bright, white smile and panty flash hadn't been enough for them to give her that 'A' on her thesis or that recommendation to Arkham Asylum. Fortunately, Vincent wasn't one of those men. He was perfectly content with the mere idea of a pretty girl showering him with attention. So much so that he obviously thrust aside the fact that she used to be a clown faced accomplice who was rumored for killing other human beings without the slightest remorse. Some people were funny.

'Evening Vincent,' she purred, dipping her head to gaze up at him through dark lashes. He smiled at her, those sweet, brown eyes divulging his excitement for the late-night visit.

'It's almost 3 a.m., Harley. Couldn't sleep?' _God, he is just so cookie-cutter, boy-next-door…it makes me queasy. _She smiled that cute, dimpled grin.

'Apparently not,' she replied with a childlike sigh, leaning against the desk and producing an adorable pout, 'I just thought I'd come see what you were up to.'

Tossing the crumpled paper into what she assumed was the garbage bin beneath the table, he flexed his fingers and eased back in his chair. 'I'm just trying to pass the time; tonight's a slow one,' he said as she nodded reflexively and deliberated when was the best time to ask him to open the door to the terrace so she could have a smoke. 'So, I hear you're getting out of here come Sunday morning,' he said in that congratulatory manner that just seemed strange considering the circumstances suggested a better suited phrase of '_Congrats! You're sane!'_ than anything else.

'So they tell me,' she declared with equal gusto.

'You gonna go back to Gotham?' he questioned with this strange glimmer in his eye like he knew something she didn't. She ignored it, curling a strand of blonde hair around her ear and shaking her head.

'I don't think so. I'll probably go to clear out some old stuff from my apartment but other than that I'm pretty much through with Gotham.'

She didn't have an apartment. Well, she _used _to have an apartment but when she became somewhat of a nomad with the Joker her landlord foreclosed the lease and sold her belongings at auction. Apparently he was one of the few in the city who didn't do business with super criminals. She hadn't minded though since nothing she'd left there was of use to her with her life on the lam with Joker. She was, however, returning to Gotham to collect some belongings from Pamela at her residence. Oh god, how she missed Pam. She'd wanted to call her so many times but always stopped before she could punch in the last digit. She hadn't even said goodbye to her. She was sure she would have known by now what had transpired over a year ago, but that was only through the grapevine. Harley felt she owed her more than that but in the heat of the moment things had just fallen into place and left her no time for personal errands such as seeing Pam one last time. It was even risky collecting some of her belongings given the fact that if anyone lurking within Gotham's underworld caught wind of it, the Joker would be the first to know. She didn't even want to imagine what might happen then.

'Listen sweetheart,' she cleared her throat and resumed her seductress role, 'I'd love to go out for one last cig'. What say you open that door once more for old times' sake.'

Vincent smiled at her and keyed in the entry code for the terrace door. 'It's all yours, Harley.'

Flashing him one more bright smile, Harley walked out onto the patio.

The night air was crisp and the sky like ink awash with stars. A faint breeze caught the fine ends of her hair in its grasp and sent a chill coursing through her. It was lonely out here. She figured the loneliness had something to do with the way the many tree branches towered over her and kept her in shadow and how the bite in the air stung her bare skin. She stuck the cigarette she'd taken from the carton in her pocket between her lips and cupped the warm flame from her lighter around the end.

'I figured you'd come around sometime,' Harley said, addressing the caped man draped in black who was hidden at the corner of the patio where the shadows were at their darkest. Patterns of moonlight and shade poured over the looming, camouflaged body that stepped towards her. Just as she remembered, his footsteps were nearly inaudible.

'You're released tomorrow,' his raspy whisper reminded her of what felt like a dreamt up life. _Clowns and flying rats? How absurd…_

'That I am. Lemme guess, here to give me the third degree on returning to my life of crime?' she chuckled mirthlessly, letting out the smoke from her lungs as she continued, 'Come on Bats, have a little more faith in me than that.'

'When it comes to the Joker you can assume why I have my doubts,' he replied as she walked to the rail and rested up against it.

'Ya, well…' she trailed off, gazing up to the stars and counting a few in a cluster before finishing, 'when it comes down to it you don't really have any control over that now, do you? Sometimes I wonder if I even do or if I'm just a really good runner.'

The dark knight is quiet just then and she regards it as the frailty of his inescapable humanity that finds its way through the cracks in his suit. She was his failure. Ironically, it took her to finally tip over the edge in order to be saved and that was never what he wanted for her. The Joker had corrupted her and in an odd kind of way she felt like a wager between the devil and the angel; each aiming to win her to their side in order to prove a point.

'Where do you plan on going when you're discharged tomorrow,' he questioned, the gruffness seeming particularly intense to redeem his position.

'I have a cousin who lives just two and a half hours away from here that's offered to take me in for a while. After that I'm not really sure,' she lies as she flicks her cigarette ashes into the grass and rests her head in her hand. She smiles to herself just then and decides it's time to breach the unspoken agreement set between them long ago,

'I never told him, you know.'

A heavy silence lingered heavy between them for a moment.

'I know.'

She looked up at him, black eyes indiscernible.

'You never wondered why?'

He turned towards the darkness and before she could breathe again, he was gone.

* * *

><p>AN: It's been such a long time since I updated, but I was lacking creativity. I've got something in the works now finally for a layout so I'm hoping for some feedback to keep me going! Hope you enjoy!


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